1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a damper for allowing a vertical hinge movement of a lid upon opening or closing the lid, particularly, upon closing the lid, to be slowly carried out, and more particularly to a damper for allowing a closing movement of a lid such as a piano keyboard lid or other lids made of a fragile material, e.g., glass, to be slowly carried out.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Generally, doors, which are installed at entrances and exits of buildings, may have drawbacks in that they may be abruptly closed, thereby generating loud noise or causing persons passing therethrough to be injured. In particular, such loud noise may cause the atmosphere of the room, where a door is installed, to be uncomfortable. For instance, persons present in the room may be startled all of a sudden due to the loud noise.
In order to solve such drawbacks, dampers have been proposed which serve to allow the closing movement of a door to be slowly carried out.
However, all known dampers are used only for doors involving a horizontal hinge movement. In other words, there is no damper allowing a closing movement of a lid involving a vertical hinge movement to be slowly carried out, in spite of the fact that such lids have the same problem as doors involving a horizontal hinge movement. In particular, more severe problems may occur in the case of heavy lids such as piano keyboard lids.
That is, a heavy lid such as a piano keyboard lid may be abruptly closed due to its weight, thereby generating loud noise or causing a person, who closes the lid, to be injured at his fingers by the lid, unless the person continuously grasps the lid until the lid reaches its closed position. Furthermore, when the lid is abruptly closed, it may apply an impact to other parts of the article on which the lid is mounted. As a result, the article itself may be damaged.
In the case of lids made of a fragile material such as glass and having a slippery surface, they themselves may also be damaged when they are abruptly closed.